Mac Or Pc Photo/Video

I require a new pc for photo and video editing mainly using adobe photoshop and premiere.. My question being what would you recommend as a good spec to provide the processing power needed...

I've looked at some pcs on the net for example this one...
http://www.meshcompute​rs.com …CT&ENT=PRODUCT&​KEY=950637

And Imacs, are these suitable or would a desktop mac be better?
http://www.apple.com/i​mac/

Would i be better off going for a mac or would I get a better spec and power from a pc for a lot less cost? If you recommend a mac, what model would suit, running CS5 and premiere with resources to spare.. ?

Those iMac machines with the IPS display are very nice. But if you intended to stay in the Apple world I think it is a really expensive path. Better to separate the machine from the display ... storage too.

On the PC side, sure you'll get alot more for your dollar. You'll want Windows 7 x64 PRO and at leat 8GB of RAM. Buy the NEC 2490WUXi2 (or better) monitor. For the computer please don't buy a junky eMachine or somthing ... go with http://pugetsystems.co​m unless you truly know how to build your own. Also make sure you setup LUA + SRP and you'll be as safe as any mac when it comes to viruses. See the link below on how to do that. A little techie, but you'll figure it out. Or you can have puget setup it up for you.

SRP:
http://www.mechbgon.co​m/srp/index.html

Pc. You get way faster machine for the same price.

Photo_Hunter wrote in post #12565933
Would i be better off going for a mac or would I get a better spec and power from a pc for a lot less cost?

You are clearly going to get a much more powerful machine for less cost by going with a PC. It is more about which do you want to have.

Photo_Hunter wrote in post #12565933
I require a new pc for photo and video editing mainly using adobe photoshop and premiere..

If you're set on Premiere and Photoshop, then it really doesn't matter. You can get a PC with fewer features than a Mac for less money. However, if you want the fastest video editing and encoding, then the i7 iMacs with Final Cut Pro that's due next month will be substantially faster. Adobe is still stuck on using the cpu, so if you have a quad-core processor, that's all you'll get to use. Final Cut Pro uses the gpu through OpenCL and in Apple's current i7 iMacs you'll get at least 800 gpu streams. That rendering will be far faster than with Premiere.

For photography, there's not anything better than Photoshop CS5; however, I rarely use it because I use Aperture instead (also uses the gpu). Lightroom is very similar to Aperture, so you should check into that as well.

Either will work fine, Mac OSX is much more intuitive for my taste but windows can do the job as well, so go try out a Mac and see how you like it.

If you go with the iMac get the base line 27in model and then add 8 gigs of ram and Apple Care that will put you at 2,068.

Although I just added everything up on Newegg to build your own PC with a 127 dollar video card same as Mac i mentioned except is 1Gig instead of 512MB. 267 dollar Quad core i5 2.8 GHZ processor/motherboard kit. A 100 dollar power supply, 80 dollar memory 8 gig (2 4 gig sticks), the monitor referred to in the second post, 1 terabyte WD HDD, keyboard and mouse, Windows 7 ultimate, a 100 dollar case, and some 21 dollar cd/dvd burner. All for $1797.88 very close to the iMac and no warranty.

Pick the OS that best fits you and pray this doesn't turn into a flame war. Both are very capable!

iSax1234 wrote in post #12571471
Either will work fine, Mac OSX is much more intuitive for my taste but windows can do the job as well, so go try out a Mac and see how you like it.

If you go with the iMac get the base line 27in model and then add 8 gigs of ram and Apple Care that will put you at 2,068.

Although I just added everything up on Newegg to build your own PC with a 127 dollar video card same as Mac i mentioned except is 1Gig instead of 512MB. 267 dollar Quad core i5 2.8 GHZ processor/motherboard kit. A 100 dollar power supply, 80 dollar memory 8 gig (2 4 gig sticks), the monitor referred to in the second post, 1 terabyte WD HDD, keyboard and mouse, Windows 7 ultimate, a 100 dollar case, and some 21 dollar cd/dvd burner. All for $1797.88 very close to the iMac and no warranty.

Pick the OS that best fits you and pray this doesn't turn into a flame war. Both are very capable!

You think that 2.7GHz 6770 512mb is fine and isn't worth to upgrade to the 3.1GHz 6970 1GB for $300 bucks?

These threads tend to deteriorate quickly into a pissing contest. I would say this if you are set with Photoshop and Premiere which will work just fine on either platform I would decide which OS you prefer working with and go from there. If you are not intrenched in Premiere you might check out the new Final Cut Pro X which I have heard great things about from friends who edit for a living. You can get good hardware from either platform so for me it comes down to the OS.

Mac or PC is a choice you'll have to make on your own. If you go Adobe the PC side will cost the same as going with a Mac with FCP and Motion. If you go with Adobe and iMac then it will cost a good bit more than going PC.

I own both PCs and Macs, but for my photo and video editing I go with PC simply because I can WAY more inexpensively spec and late upgrade my hardware without a huge financial investment.

Damian75 wrote in post #12640043
you might check out the new Final Cut Pro X which I have heard great things about from friends who edit for a living.

One of my friends (producer) just gave me a completely different outlook.... he hates it, and said there are numerous issues with their new setup. /shrug, I haven't touched it. He's a mac guy (I'm definitely not), and he's now trying to decide if he wants to stick with Final Cut or move on to Premier/elsewhere.

FCP is purposely not created for windows because again, it would underline the fact that apple hardware is over priced. and not special. They'd end up with people running final cut pro on fast, high end PC's that were quicker than mac pro's for under $1000. Or just slightly over. My i7 based pc at 4ghz was $730. Apple would NOT want this to happen. IT's the same BS they have where it's OK to run windows on a mac, but Apple and Jobs won't allow osx to ever run on anything but hardware he sells. And also because OSX has pretty much zero hardware detection in comparison to windows. I just know there will be a mac user at the end of this. Not to offend, but you know I'm right. There's nothing special about macs. IT's just that it's fan base thinks there is something. What is great about using Adobe Premiere as a Final Cut Pro alternative is that it plugs in great with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Encore, both of which are industry standards at this point. This is not to mention that you can work in design through Adobe Photoshop and Adobe In Design, all of which have a somewhat common language because of their base company.

PerfectTan wrote in post #12641153
FCP is purposely not created for windows because again, it would underline the fact that apple hardware is over priced. and not special. They'd end up with people running final cut pro on fast, high end PC's that were quicker than mac pro's for under $1000. Or just slightly over. My i7 based pc at 4ghz was $730. Apple would NOT want this to happen. IT's the same BS they have where it's OK to run windows on a mac, but Apple and Jobs won't allow osx to ever run on anything but hardware he sells. And also because OSX has pretty much zero hardware detection in comparison to windows. I just know there will be a mac user at the end of this. Not to offend, but you know I'm right. There's nothing special about macs. IT's just that it's fan base thinks there is something. What is great about using Adobe Premiere as a Final Cut Pro alternative is that it plugs in great with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Encore, both of which are industry standards at this point. This is not to mention that you can work in design through Adobe Photoshop and Adobe In Design, all of which have a somewhat common language because of their base company.

In a real editing houses PCs cost just as much if not more than Macs. Support costs a lot and support is the key. PC workstations are expensive. With Apple all your support comes from one company whereas with PCs you often have one company fighting with another over who is at fault. That's part of why Apple is number one in support. On the PC side if you have one point of support it's going to cost you a pretty penny. Often they will drop support if you install unsupported software/hardware. Apples FCP is still the standard in nonlinear production btw.

jmg181 wrote in post #12641111
One of my friends (producer) just gave me a completely different outlook.... he hates it, and said there are numerous issues with their new setup. /shrug, I haven't touched it. He's a mac guy (I'm definitely not), and he's now trying to decide if he wants to stick with Final Cut or move on to Premier/elsewhere.

Yes FCP X is missing features and Apple has stated that it will be adding them over time. The big reason is because several are going to depend on Lion to function and more testing is going to be needed. They have stated that XML, multicam and transport options are on the way. FCP was made modulatory so pieces will be able to be added later without issue.

Moving to Adobe would be pretty dumb at this point IMO. Training people on a new platform, spending thousands of dollars, changing a workflow and perhaps needing to find new solutions is a dangerous to say the least. If he's gone this long he should wait a little while and see what happens. It will also give him time to explore the new software and see if it's going to work out.

insert from what I read so far...